Culture in Melrose

José Manuel Soto, who everyone called Chema, and his neighbors cleared a dumped-on lot at 158th and Brook in the late 1970s and built a casita on it, a small Puerto Rican country house with a garden around it. The lot it sits on now is its second city-owned site. There is a stage, planting plots, chickens, an outdoor kitchen for lechón asao and a workshop where instruments get built and repaired. Los Pleneros de la 21 came out of this yard.

April 1 to October 31 only. Wed, 9am to 11am. Fri, 4pm to 6pm. Sat and Sun, 1pm to 4pm. Closed through the winter

A museum on the Grand Concourse that has been free to everyone for years, with a collection built around artists of African, Asian and Latin American descent and artists who have worked in the Bronx. The South Wing is shut for a renovation the City has put more than forty million dollars into, so what is open is the North Wing. Exhibitions turn over a few times a year and the building closes between them.

Wed to Sun, 11am to 6pm. Closed Monday and Tuesday. Admission free for everyone. Shut for an exhibition changeover from September 7 to October 8, 2026, reopening the evening of Friday October 9